Everton and Nottingham Forest have been docked points under the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules, and the Foxes now facing similar charges. So is it time for such spending limits to be scrapped altogether?
What a shower! The Premier League have charged Leicester City with breaching spending rules (Image: Catherine Ivill)
First it was Everton. Then Everton again, with Nottingham Forest thrown in for good measure. Now Leicester City are on the wrong end of a potential Premier League points deduction. So, just who is safe from the scourge of profitability and sustainability? Even in the EFL?
Scourge because that is what the rules are fast becoming. Officially they are in place to protect clubs from themselves, to ensure none run the risk of overstretching themselves in some headlong dash for glory.
That was never the case for City. Yes, there was glory – that against-all-odds title triumph and then an FA Cup to add to the trophy cabinet – but the Foxes were never big spenders, relatively speaking, not compared to some of their top-flight rivals. If anything, Leicester’s woes stem from not being able to generate sufficient cash on the back of those successes.
But of more immediate concern for clubs like Leicester, as they close in on a return to the top-flight, has to be just what the long-term consequences of profitability and sustainability will be to the Premier League and its members?
Aston Villa have mega-rich owners and shown great ambition to break into the top six. Have they been profligate? Not particularly, at least on the face of it. Do they command decent revenue? It would seem so when you look at the TV deals enjoyed by top-flight clubs, their income from sponsorship, even the money made from filing Villa Park every other week. Yet they are contemplating selling players to balance the books. Surely that cannot be right? Not in a competitive league structure. Not when your owners are loaded?
Wolves seem to be in a similar boat, Chelsea too. And these are just the clubs we know about. How many more out there are treading a fine line between ambition, survival – and keeping the Premier League sweet? It seems bureaucracy is fast becoming football’s Japanese knotweed, a blight running wild and choking the life out of the game.
It is nearly 14 years since Portsmouth were docked points by the Premier League, their punishment for falling into administration. Since then, by and large, top-flight owners have come with far more financial muscle. Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha and his family, with a net worth of around US$3.5 billion, fall into this category.
But the biggest stumbling block to giving their clubs the financial wherewithal to either compete with the best or maintain their top-flight status are the spending limits designed to keep clubs safe. Instead, those very rules are stifling ambition… and down the line could very well discourage wealthy owners, like Leicester’s, from investing in the first place.
UEFA have their own spending rules, so surely it would be far better to let top-flight clubs have their head and spend as they see fit, even if that means owners subsidising income from their own deep pockets. Better for the Premier League to instead ensure potential owners have the cash to back their ambition than stop them from spending it.
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